[R&F] Religious emergency

[local_hero]

I'd like to share an experience about this but I didn't find any existing thread. Maybe they are more rare than others.

I joined an emergency against Scythia who had converted a Japanese city. Hojo Tokimune was very happy about this and asked me to be his friend. I had my own religion though and couldn't send my own religious units to beat Scythian in religious combat. I declared war on Scythia and condemned their religious units to only decrease their religion.

Mr Tokimune got upset because that converted his religious city from the Scythian religion back to his own. And that is a hefty permanent (?) -9 diplomatic modifier.

What are your experiences on this emergency type? I'll stay clear from these from now on.

 

[playshogi]

I converted the Gandhi's last city, a holy city, to my religion and a religious emergency was declared against me. But there was no city in the world that had that religion anymore, so how could anyone re-convert it? Unless there were some random apostles already roaming around which I don't think there were any. Further, how can anyone join to win another player's religious emergency, anyway? Make apostles of a religion NOT your own?

 

[liv]

I had my own religion though and couldn't send my own religious units to beat Scythian in religious combat.

I do not play religion unless I play as Spain whose ability I enjoy for the fun of it. Last time I played there was a religious emergency that I joined but I remember it being very straight forward. Remove the religion from this city kind of a thing.
What I wondered was if you joined it why did you not send your units in? I am probably missing something......

 

[local_hero]

I do not play religion unless I play as Spain whose ability I enjoy for the fun of it. Last time I played there was a religious emergency that I joined but I remember it being very straight forward. Remove the religion from this city kind of a thing.
What I wondered was if you joined it why did you not send your units in? I am probably missing something......

My understanding of religious combat is that the defeated party loses pressure in nearby cities and the winner gains religious pressure. So there's two effects. However if you kill their units with military units, nearby cities only lose pressure from the religion the apostle/missionary/etc belonged to. That was my reasoning while engaging in this emergency, that I wouldn't convert Japanese cities to my religion. The AI obviously hates that, so I thought this would be a good work around.

So my conclusion... don't join religious emergencies unless to prevent a religious victory?

 

[CPWimmer]

I think this was said in some other thread, but they really need to beef up the Religious Emergency for the player who lost their Holy City. Granting them 1 or 2 Inquisitors and a free Apostle, maybe even with a specific promotion. On one hand, shame on the Civ who didn't defend their religious capital, but on the other if Emergencies are really supposed to be a pseudo-rubber band mechanic, Firaxis needs to figure out a way to balance them.

 

[Hactar]

I prefer to be the target of religious emergencies

That does seem like a bug, if reverting to his own religion caused a diplomatic hit.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I think this was said in some other thread, but they really need to beef up the Religious Emergency for the player who lost their Holy City. Granting them 1 or 2 Inquisitors and a free Apostle, maybe even with a specific promotion. On one hand, shame on the Civ who didn't defend their religious capital, but on the other if Emergencies are really supposed to be a pseudo-rubber band mechanic, Firaxis needs to figure out a way to balance them.

I prefer to be the target of religious emergencies

I'm not sure they were intended to be a "rubber-band mechanism" so much as a "shake things up and make players react to events on the map mechanism".

That said, I'd suggest they aren't balanced right now. In the test games I've been observing (Deity level), emergencies when only the AI participates have succeeded only 22% of the time. So it's not just you they can't pursue an emergency against, they struggle to succeed in them against other AIs, too. I haven't been tracking what type of emergencies these are, as the notices don't tell you unless you were invited to participate, so these are overall emergency numbers, rather than specific to particular emergency types.